Liron Gertsman, 12, saved up for his state-of-the-art camera and lenses for three years.Arlen Redekop
/ Vancouver Sun

Liron Gertsman, 12-year-old birder, poses with his photographs at his home in Vancouver, B.C., Aug 30, 2012. Gertsman is a renowned among the birder community in Metro and recently won an eBird contest by submitting the 100 millionth birding observation to the Stanley Park Ecology Society.Arlen Redekop
/ Vancouver Sun

Liron Gertsman is 12, and looks uncannily like that boy in The Sixth Sense, with the same dark eyes and same acute sensitivity. He’s bright — a straight-A student — and is by all appearances a sweet, well-mannered kid with none of the simmering resentment of an adolescent.

His name, from the Hebrew, means “my song” — a lyricism, his parents would find, that would turn out to be prophetic. Liron does not sing, but his passion does. Liron loves birds.

He has been a birder since the age of five. He has notebooks from that time filled with his own drawings and observations of them. His room is filled with big colour photos of birds and a collection of bird feathers. He maintains a blog on birding that he fills with photos from his outings — you can visit it at lironsnaturephotography.yolasite.com. His camera and lenses, which he saved up three years to buy, are state-of-the art. He has a life list of just over 180 different bird species.

When he was 10, he started volunteering with the Stanley Park Ecology Society so he could take part in its bird surveys. He’s done 60 of them so far. Since the society has a minimum age requirement of 14 for volunteers, his parents have had to accompany him.

His parents have no idea where his love for birds came from — his mother, Keren just held up her hands and shrugged at the question. Even Liron isn’t quite sure.

“Well, basically, since I was born, I’ve always been interested in nature and wildlife. And I’m not really sure how I got down to birds, but soon it narrowed down and birds just interested me. Why? They can fly, and I wish I could fly. And how they can travel across a continent in just under a week — that’s really amazing. The variety of them is really amazing, too — there’s like giant vultures and tiny little hummingbirds and stuff. And some can catch big animals and some will survive on just bugs and seeds.”

The family would go on vacation, and to his parents’ exasperation, Liron would insist they take him birding. Hawaii, Mexico, Palm Springs, Israel — there was less beach time than birdwatching.

“We just got back from a vacation in New York,” Keren said, “and this time we told him, ‘No birding this time! This vacation, we’re going to look at buildings and go shopping and do all the touristy things!’”

As it turned out, they spent much of their time birding in Central Park, where, at one point, Liron watched American redstarts eat bugs — for 45 minutes. His parents deserve medals.

“Liron,” Keren said, “says to me many times, ‘You know, you’d be waking up at 5 a.m. to take me to hockey. And because I don’t want to do that, because I don’t want to play hockey, it doesn’t mean you’re off the hook.’ He’s very convincing. And I mean, who wouldn’t be happy their child is out looking at nature? So, we don’t understand all of it, and we’re not passionate about (birding), but we support it as much as we can.”

“They’re very good about it,” Liron said.

Recently, on Aug. 8, Liron’s grandparents took him birding in North Vancouver’s Maplewood Flats. Later that night, as he usually does, he logged on to eBird, a global birding site. Launched in 2002 by the National Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, N.Y., eBird collects data and sighting from birders around the world.

Liron reported the 24 bird species he had sighted that day. One of them was an American Robin.

Soon after, Liron received an email from eBird explaining that, to celebrate the popularity the site was enjoying, and to mark a milestone in the vast amount of birding data that was coming in from birders all around the world, eBird had been holding a contest that would reward the person who submitted the 100-millionth birding observation.

Liron’s American Robin, the email informed him, was Number 100,000,000.

“I won some bird books, which haven’t arrived yet,” Liron said, “and some chocolates. And I got to go birding with one of the ornithologists from Cornell, which was really great.” (Andrew Farnsworth, with the Cornell lab, took Liron on an outing while attending the North American Ornithological Conference held here this August.)

The odds of Liron winning were improbable; it was also fitting. The eBird site was started in part to respond to the dire condition of many bird populations around the world. Bird numbers among species like swallows and songbirds have crashed alarmingly. Data was needed about the state of their numbers. What better way to collect that data than from millions of birders, those people who love birds most?

But eBird was also about ensuring the future of bird populations. And who could better personify the future than someone who would have to live it, a 12-year-old whose future was still ahead of him?

Asked about that future, and about the future of birds, Liron’s answer was a surprise. He said: “I feel things are getting better. And there are organizations out there like SPES and eBird that are teaching people there can be a better future.

“I’m hopeful, because I think we’re doing things better for birds and nature than we were.”

You do not hear optimism like that much these days, but it was a tonic.

It was reassuring just to be reminded that some could still think there was a future, and that we could do something about it. And I couldn’t help but think that, sitting beside me, embodying it, was that thing with feathers — hope.

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